


Dead Woman Walking

by LoveDoesHurt



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Apocalypse, Blood and Gore, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Complicated Relationships, Eventual Romance, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Romance, Serious Injuries, Slow Burn, Walkers (Walking Dead), What am I doing, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies, angst written badly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2018-12-17 12:14:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11851362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveDoesHurt/pseuds/LoveDoesHurt
Summary: In less than 24 hours, Victoria Martin and the good doctor Edwin Jenner were going to die on their own terms.At least that was the plan before Sheriff Grimes arrived.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's no excuse for taking this long. I lost interest and then, out of the blue, we decided to move across the country this week. So instead of doing something (anything) productive, I decided to write this. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> (Also completely unedited, excuse the mistakes)

 

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-.-. -.. -.-. / .- - .-.. .- -. - .- / -. --- / ..-. ..- . .-.. ...

-.-. -.. -.-. / .- - .-.. .- -. - .- / -. --- / .-.. --- -. --. . .-. / ... .- ..-. .

Victoria sighed to herself as the transmission looped, mentally marking off another day passed in radio silence— 30 of them, to be exact. Things weren't looking up.

"VI, status report"

A feminine voice droned over the loudspeakers, "It's currently twenty hundred hours, ten minutes from sunset, humid with a high of eighty-three degrees and you wanted me to remind you to eat before going to bed at a reasonable hour tonight"

Victoria blinked, was the day gone already? It was so hard to keep up these days. "I forgot, thank you VI"

"Of course, Ms. Martin. Is there anything else I could help you with?"

"Yes, where is Jenner presently?"

"In the cafeteria" A beat passed before the voice added, "Dr. Jenner requested he be left alone tonight"

"Was it not Jenner who instead we have dinner tonight?" But the complaint fell on deaf ears, "VI, please remind Dr. Jenner he can't hide in the cafeteria forever"

Another beat passed before she was given an answer, "Dr. Jenner would like me to report the following; at eighteen twenty-nine hours Dr. Jenner signed into laboratory Zeta for the documented work of T-S nineteen, at eighteen thirty-four hours a red alert was reported from laboratory Zeta, at eighteen thirty-seven hours a full decontamination of laboratory Zeta was in effect"

Victoria scrunched her face, trying to keep up with the itinerary.

"Dr. Jenner would like to add; in layman's terms, T-S nineteen went up in flames. Times run out and I have nothing to show for it— leave me to drink in peace" The dry, clinical retort was just the cherry on top of all the bad news.

Victoria chuckled, an unfamiliar, humourless noise that bounced off the walls aimlessly.  _Of course_  Jenner destroyed their last chance at survival,  _of course_  he was drinking away in the cafeteria instead,  _of course_  she would spend another night alone.

"We'll have breakfast tomorrow" VI added for Jenner, almost as if it were an afterthought.

You can tell Jenner he can eat my—" Before Victoria could finish that thought, a loud, frantic alarm blasted through the control room. Her attention turned back to the bank of monitors in front of her as they blinked  ** _RED ALART!_**  before bringing up the security feeds of the front door.

Two men were approaching, Victoria couldn't help but to notice one of them was dressed in full sheriff regalia. He banged on the metal shutters while the other man tried lifting the barricade with no avail— even Victoria knew it wasn't smart to be close to the city after dark, what did they want?

Even more survivors approached the door. They were surprisingly well-armed, and even had young children with them. The group huddled around the door, watching with wide, uncertain eyes as the men failed to get inside.

They turned suddenly, and Victoria watched as one of the survivors lifted his crossbow and shot something off-camera. "You led us into a graveyard!" He shouted, his voice coming through the monitors loudly as he stalked towards the Sheriff.

"He made a call!" Someone else yelled.

"He made the wrong damn call!" But crossbow stumbled back as another man, the one who approached with the Sheriff, shoved him back with the butt of his shotgun not once, but twice.

"Just shut up! You hear me? Shut up! Shut up!" Shotgun spat before he turned to the Sheriff, "Rick, this is a dead end"

Victoria found herself standing, braced against the console as she watched, she had to do  _something,_  "VI, disengage the emergency shutdown and released the front facing shutters"

"I'm sorry," The voice called, "but I cannot disengage the emergency shutdown without proper authorisation"

"The camera, it moved!" The Sheriff exclaimed, silencing the frantic bickering behind him.

"You imagined it" The woman closest insisted, holding a frightened boy against her.

"Rick, it is dead, man. It's an automated device. It's gears, okay? They're just winding down. Now come'on" Shotgun tried to pry the Sheriff away but Rick wasn't going down without a fight and struggled against the man continuously.

"Dammit, VI, open me those damn doors" Victoria shouted.

"I'm sorry but I cannot disengage the emergency shutdown with proper authorisation"

She slammed her palms against the console, rattling the useless thing, "Fine. Then tell Jenner to give me authorisation. Tell him it's an emergency— dammit!" Victoria stopped as the group helplessly fired off-camera, she had no doubt they were being surrounded by the vicious creatures lurking around the building— that damn, good for nothing military checkpoint was infested with creatures.

"Dr. Jenner refuses to release the emergency shutdown or authorise you" VI announced, "He wishes, and I quote, to be drown himself in silence"

The shutters rattled nosily as the Sheriff slapped his open palms against them with all his might. He lifted his head, glaring at the camera over the brim of his hat, "I know you're in there. I know you can hear me"

"VI, put the security feed over the loud speakers" Victoria demanded over the man's distress, "Let Jenner hear it through his fucking pity party!"

The once great medical building came alive with crackling audio; over gunfire, whimpers of children's terror and Rick's distraught begging came through tenfold.

"Please, we're desperate. Please help us. We have women, children, no good, hardly any gas left" He knocked against the shutters again, his piercing eyes never leaving the camera, never leaving Victoria on the other side, "We have nowhere else to go!" The woman beside him let go of the boy and rushed in front of the distraught man, she grabbed fistfuls of his grimy uniform and tried to tug him away with shrill, urgent cries. But the man was nothing if not persistent, "If you don't let us in you're killing us! You're killing us!"

"Christ" Victoria dropped to her knees, "Christ" She turned her back against the console and pulled her knees up to her chest— she could still hear them screaming, even after she dropped her head between her legs.

"Please help us! You're killing us! You're killing us!"

"Open the fucking doors, Jenner! Fuck!"

"Authorisation approved. Emergency CDC shutdown disengaged. Frontward facing shutters releasing"  
  



	2. Chapter 2

The first time Victoria met Dr. Edwin Jenner, he was very nicely put together

He wore a crisp white button up and fitted grey slacks under his lab coat, his blonde hair was slicked back and his eyes were bright and never left hers as Victoria relentlessly questioned him about his research— even his shoes were polished.

As things became more hectic, with the world ending and all, Edwin always held himself with great composure— until now, it seemed.

As the elevator doors opened, Victoria was greeted by a windswept Edwin; his pajamas were wine stained, his hair looked greasy, and his eyes were red rimmed and sunken— she almost didn't recognise him.

"You look like hell"

"You don't look any better" He muttered, grabbing the handrail as he swayed, "Get in"

She warily eyed the assault rifle clutched in his hands instead.

"Don't look like that, we don't know what these people are" Jenner grunted, sparing a glance at her holster, "You don't seem so confident either"

Guilty green eyes flickered to where the pistol was strapped under her arm, she felt guilty enough for bringing it with her— at the beginning, there was a bandit problem that was swiftly solved by letting the creatures of the night surround them while the bandits tried to buzz saw their way in. Victoria kept her pistol on her ever since, even when she slept —but the Sheriff and his group were good people, they wouldn't've had women, children and a Sheriff with them if they weren't.

Victoria stepped into the elevator and stabbed the first floor button until the doors shut. God, she could smell the wine wafting off him— he wasn't joking about drowning himself in it.

The first several floors passed in absolute silence, an uncomfortable one at that. It wasn't until they almost reached the surface that Jenner spoke, "I hope you know what you've done"

Victoria crossed her arms over her chest, lifting her chin at his scorning tone, "What was I supposed to do, Jenner? You heard them. I couldn't leave them there to die, they don't deserve that"

"They don't deserve what we've sentenced them to"

She caught the moody mutter and turned to him, sharply echoing, "What we've sentenced them to? For god sakes, Jenner, what have we sentenced them to; a warm meal, a clean bed, a roof over their heads? What good is this empty fucking bunker if we can't share it?"

Edwin hung his head, wisely silent as the woman glared at him.

She shifted away from him, swallowing the rest of her rage— he was drunk, she didn't have to listen to a word he said.

The elevator finally came to a halt, ringing nosily before opening with a mechanical wail.

Victoria tensed, reaching for the grip of her pistol as they stepped off the lift. She hadn't seen the surface since everything went to shit and wasn't sure she cared to now with everything trying to kill her.

The lobby was as pristine as she remembered it being, only now it was much darker— the only light source was the florescent bulb above the reception desk and they were broken, flickering with an incessant  _thrum_  —and felt cavernous without all the other employees bustling around.

With the doors closed behind them, the survivors were now lingering in the lobby with wide, cautious eyes. Victoria counted thirteen of them, two were children and half the survivors were armed, they looked absolutely wrecked— she wore pants and a plain shirt but was cleaner then every single person in the room, including Edwin.

Jenner lingered at the top of the stairs, gesturing with a nod for Victoria to approach ahead of him. With a long-suffering eye roll, she walked down the marble steps.

Her footsteps echoed like gunshots. The survivors visibly jumped before they saw her, standing in the middle of the stairs behind the reception desk. It was dim, but they could still make out the silhouette of a woman holding a gun, and pointed their weapons at her.

"Any of you infected?"

"One of our group was" The Sheriff said, his twang coated with remorse, "He didn't make it"

She lowered her gun and took another few steps down the stairs, "The CDC isn't what you think it is anymore" She told them, "What do you want?"

As she approached, they got a good look at each other; she was tall, slim, her dark hair was pulled into a tight ponytail and her lips were pressed into a firm line— she looked healthy, clean, which was more than they could say about themselves. The survivors seemed exhausted but were alert enough to watch her with suspicion. Victoria knew, just by the looks on their faces, that whatever hell they survived through was more than she ever could.

"A chance" The Sheriff finally answered.

She reached the last step silently and glanced over her shoulder at Jenner, who was still hiding in the shadows, with a raised brow.

"You all submit to a blood test" Edwin called, "That's the price of admission"

The group startled again, looking around wildly for the phantom voice.

"That's Dr. Jenner" Victoria explained, lifting her hands as she approached them, "What he says, goes"

The Sheriff lowered his gun and the rest followed, if not hesitantly— it was becoming clear who was the leader here. "We can do it"

"Get your things if you have them outside, once those doors shut, they stay sealed"

The group sprang into action, rushing back through the doors to RV parked behind the military blockade. It was a quick excursion. They didn't have much, just a bag per person. Victoria helped them shut the doors as the last survivor ran back in with the final two duffle bags— it was dark outside now, and Victoria could hear the faint howls of the undead in the distance. She shivered, how could anyone survivor out there?

Jenner meandered down the stairs and pushed past Victoria and the survivors. He approached the keypad by the door and swiped his keycard over it, "VI, seal the main entrance, kill the power up here" And watched as the shutters fell over the doors again with a sigh.

The Sheriff approached Victoria with confident strides. He was handsome, she couldn't help but to notice, with striking blue eyes that held all his emotion; he seemed relieved but there was an equal amount of suspicion lurking behind his baby blues.

He offered his hand, "Rick Grimes"

She stared at the limb, surprised by the manners she thought long forgotten, "Victoria Martin" She introduced, slipping a hand through his and giving it a firm shake, "Welcome to the CDC"

They followed her into the elevator she approached them from, it was a tight fit but they all managed to just squeeze in. The ride was a mostly silent one until Crossbow spoke up gruffly, "Doctors always go around packing heat like that?"

It took a moment before Jenner realised he was being talked to, "Oh, there were plenty left lying around. I familiarized myself"

Victoria wanted to smack him, it sounded like a threat. "But you all look harmless enough" She said, looking around the group; they were slumped against each other, obviously exhausted, ignoring her, all except one, the young boy tightly pressed against his mother. Victoria caught his eye and winked at him, "Except you, I'll have to keep my eye on you"

The boy flashed a toothy smile at her and when Victoria glanced up, even his mother was softly grinning back. Victoria hoped after a warm meal and a good night's sleep, everyone would feel a little lighter in the morning.

The elevator door snapped open after another silent beat. Jenner squeezed past Victoria and started walking down the hallway Victoria had come from earlier. The woman sighed, gesturing for the group to follow.

"Are we underground?" One of the women asked.

"A few hundred miles" Victoria answered, watching over her shoulder as the woman cringed, "Are you claustrophobic?"

"A little"

"You forgot how far you are once you've been down here enough. Try not to think about it"

"VI," Jenner voiced gruffly, "Bring up the lights in the big room"

Victoria winced as the florescent lights brightened up the control room, far brighter then she had it in weeks.

"Welcome to zone five" Jenner announced, descending onto the elevated platform.

"Where is everybody?" Rick asked, looking around with confusion, "The other doctors, the staff?"

Victoria slid into her messy station in front of the bank of monitors, "It's just us here"

At once, the entire group deflated, disappointed but not surprised.

"What about the other person you were speaking with?" The boy's mother asked, "VI?"

"VI, say hello to our guests" Jenner said loudly, "Tell them, welcome"

"Hello, guests" The mechanical voice called back, "Welcome"

"She's just an A.I" Victoria explained, "It's just me and him" She shook her head, wishing she had better news, "I'm sorry"

Jenner turned around, unable to watch their fallen expressions, "Follow me"

Victoria sat back in her chair while the rest of the group filed out behind the doctor. One of them lingered in the control room, another handsome man holding a shotgun. He looked around the empty room with narrowed eyes before turning his sights on Victoria, raising an unruly brow at her, "Are ya' coming?"

Victoria shook her head, "I figured after those blood tests, you're all gonna be a little, uh, lightheaded. I'll start dinner, just mention I said so to Jenner"

He stared at her and for a moment, she felt naked, totally scrutinized by the attractive man. She stared back, hoping her expression didn't give away just how  _interested_  she was.

"That's very kind of you" He finally drawled, tilting his head.

Victoria watched him leave and didn't move until he, Edwin, and the rest of the group were long gone.

She looked over her shoulder. In the middle of the room, she watched the giant red timer count down the remaining 12 hours. 


	3. Chapter 3

For the very first time, the mess hall was thriving.

After giving a vial of blood each, the survivors stumbled into the cafeteria where Victoria was just preparing dinner— spaghetti, her favourite meal from before.

She quickly learned the names of the women first, who were quick to offer their assistance; Lori, Andrea, Carol, and Jacqui. Lori was Rick's wife and their son was the young boy, Carl. Carol had a daughter, Sophia, about the same age as Carl.

Then, while she helped them push together the benches and allowed them to raid the pantry for booze, Victoria learned the names of the men; Shane, Glenn, Daryl, T-Dog and Dale, and she already met Rick.

Once dinner was served, a whole new atmosphere encompassed the room. The survivors did look a lighter, now with food and wine in them, and if Victoria closed her eyes, she could pretend she was in the middle of an office party.

Dale, the eldest man with stark white hair and deep wrinkles around his sparkling eyes, poured another glass of wine with a chuckle, "You know in Italy, children have a little bit of wine with dinner" He passed the glass to Lori, who shook her head with a laugh of her own.

"Well, when Carl is in Italy or France, he can have some then"

Rick looked up from his meal with a laugh, "What's it gonna hurt?" He met his wife's eyes over Carl's head, and flashed a charming grin, "Come on. Come on!"

Lori gave in with a shrug, and nodded at Dale with a grin. Everyone watched was the boy took a sip of wine, then immediately shoved the cup away from him with a grimace, "Ew!" He bemoaned, "That tastes nasty" He complained.

"That's my boy" Lori nodded, pouring the finger of wine into her own, already very full glass.

"Well, just stuck to soda pop there, bud" Shane muttered, He appeared more uncomfortable by the second, Victoria noticed he had yet to join in on the festivities either— he was still suspicious, just like in the control room when he spoke to her.

"Not you, Glenn!" The crossbow wielding hillbilly, Daryl, exclaimed.

The young Asian man looked up with a confused expression, "What?" He giggled, clutching a wine bottle to his chest.

Daryl smirked as he poured himself another hearty glass of wine, "Keep drinking, little man. I want to see how red your face can get"

Another round of laughter began and Rick noticed how silent Victoria and Jenner were being. They were sitting at a bench behind everybody, Jenner was looking off into the distance and Victoria was picking the label off a wine bottle, twirling her spaghetti endlessly.

The Sheriff stood, tapping a knife against his glass until everybody silenced and looked up at him, "It seems to me we haven't thanked our hosts properly"

T-Dog lifted his bottle and slurred, "They're more than just our hosts"

"Here, here!" "Here's to you, Doc!" " _Booyah!_ "  _" **Booyah!** "_

"So when are you gonna tell us what the hell happened here, Doc?" Shane finally asked over the drunken cheering, "All the- the other doctors that were supposed to be figuring out what happened, where are they?"

"We celebrating, Shane" Rick took a seat, glaring at his friend, "Don't need to do this now"

Shane held up a hand, "Whoa, wait a second; this is why we're here right? This was your move— supposed to find all the answers. Instead we," He chuckled, thrusting a thumb behind him in Jenner's direction, "we find them.  _Why?_ "

Over a sip of wine, Edwin looked at Victoria as if to say  _well, this is your problem, deal with it._

With a sigh, the woman shifted to face the survivors, "Well, I'm not actually a doctor" She said, much to their shock, "Jenner is. He's the last one. I was private detective before"

"The why are you here?" The quiet question came from Andrea, who seemed like she held the weight of the world on her shoulders.

"I served in Afghanistan after the attack on the twin towers. When things took a turn, the Government started reenlisting" Victoria explained, another sigh leaving her lips, "That military checkpoint you passed on the way in was part of my assignment"

Shane leaned back in his chair, fixing her with a glare, " _Where_  is everyone?"

"When we realised things weren't going to get better, people started leaving. Soldiers, doctors, went off to be with their families, which I'm sure you can understand"

"Every last one?"

"No" Victoria paused, taking a sip of wine before continuing dryly, "The rest of them couldn't face walking out the door. Every time I opened a door or stepped into a hallway, there was another suicide to clean up" She shook her head, looking away from the group as she murmured, "We lost a lot good people then"

"You and Dr. Jenner didn't leave" Andrea didn't miss a beat.

"I just kept working," Jenner said with a rueful shake of his head, "hoping to do some good"

They turned back to Victoria but she already turned their back on them, and was now drinking from the wine bottle instead.

"Dude," Glenn stood up, "You are  _such_  a buzzkill, man"

It was clear dinner was over after that. Once everybody finished and the mess hall was cleaned, Victoria offered to show them where they would sleeping— Jenner already left, uninterested in further socialising with the strangers.

"Most of the facility is powered down, including housing, so you'll have to make do here" Victoria gestured to the row of doors, "The couches are comfortable, but there are cots in storage if you like. There's a rec room down the hall you kids might enjoy" She paused, turning around and frowning at the kids apologetically, "Just don't plug in the video games, okay?" They nodded eagerly and she added to the rest, "Or anything that draws power. The same applies— if you shower, go easy on the hot water" Encouraged by hot water, the survivors were quick to claim their rooms.

Instead of following, Victoria fell in line to the control room without thinking about it. She lived there, her room in dormant in guest housing after weeks and weeks of watching the monitors in case something happened— and something did happen finally, but she still felt guilty for leaving the screens.

She found Jenner in the control room, sitting in front of a monitor and mumbling to himself, "The T-S nineteen samples are gone. The tragedy of their loss cannot be overstated. They were our freshest samples by far. None of the other samples we gathered even came close. Those are necrotic, useless dead flesh" He paused, leaning into the camera above the screen, "I don't know why I'm talking to you. I bet there isn't a single son of a bitch out there still listening, is there? Is there? Fine, saves me the embarrassment"

In was clear he was deep in his pity party, because he didn't hear Victoria slowly back out of the control room.

"I think tomorrow I'm gonna blow my brains out. I haven't decided. But tonight, I'm getting drunk"

Victoria hurried back into guest housing, exhaustion setting deep in her bones— whatever Jenner did, it was  _his_  problem.

She collapsed in her room, falling on the bed face first and letting her eyes close for the first time days—

—but they snapped back open as something heavy hit her room. It sounded like someone was trying to get into her room, but couldn't get the doorknob open.

With a groan, Victoria forced herself off the bed and opened the door. It was Shane, with his shirt buttoned all the way down— he was toned, very tan, Victoria struggled to meet his eye. When she did, she finally noticed he was holding his face like something hard hit him.

"Are you okay?" She asked, bewildered.

With his free hand, Shane braced himself against the wall and hung his head with a grunt— she could smell the alcohol on him like a distillery.

"Are you... are you bleeding?" She tugged at his elbow but the man was as strong as he looked, even while three sheets to the wind. "If you're bleeding, it might get infected. And if it gets infected, you might become  _infected infected_ , which would be a damn shame because you just got here. Let me help" She wrapped her hands around his and gently pried his hand away from his face.

He had three, fresh scratch marks on his jaw and down his neck. They were thin and jagged, but weren't bleeding too heavily. Victoria had half a mind to send him away but by the dark look in the man's eyes, she thought better of it— those scratches came from a woman's nails, obviously Shane already did something stupid.

Victoria half carried, half dragged him into her room and let him drop unceremoniously onto her bed. It was then she noticed the disarray her room was in, a man's clothes trailing into the bathroom and a familiar shotgun on the dresser, it explained why Shane tried breaking into  _her_  room.

She ducked into her bathroom, ignoring the mess, and grabbed the first aid kit from the medicine cabinet before returning to the man. He was on his back with his eyes closed; he almost like peaceful, if Victoria didn't know better.

"Are you gonna tell me who did this?"

"I ain't"

Victoria sat next to him and quickly went to work on disinfecting his face. She knew it was probably better to let it go, whatever turmoil in the group was none of her business. "You could" She said, curiosity getting the best of her, "I'm not a member of your group, so I have literally not attachment to any of you— sorry, this is gonna sting —I will say, however, a blind man could the tension between you and that Sheriff, Rick Grimes"

Shane clenched his jaw, though Victoria didn't it was from the pain, "He was dead"

Her hands stilled on his stubble, "Oh?"

"He was shot on duty before things went to shit"

Victoria hummed, waiting for him to continue.

"I thought he was dead, he was dead. He had no pulse, what was I supposed to think? He was dead" Shane muttered through the corner of his lips, "I took care of Lori and Carl. I got them out of the city, I made sure they were safe, dammit, I took care of her!"

Victoria had a feeling Shane was taking care of Lori the way her husband wouldn't appreciate.

"And we were happy" He cracked an eye open. Victoria was still above him, only now her hands were in her lap and she was staring at him with an amused smirk. "We were!" He insisted, needing her to believe him, "They were having problems before he was shot. I made her happy, happier then Rick ever made her. She was happy with me— I loved her better. Then he came back and ruined everything"

She was silent for a moment, before shaking her head, "He came back from the dead to find his family and his friend was fucking his wife?  _Christ_ "

" _Best_  friend"

Victoria blew a soft whistle from between her lips, "That's pretty fucked up, man. But it's exactly the type of drama I miss from soap operas" She closed the first aid kit and stood, "This is my room by the way"

He grunted but otherwise didn't make a move.

She started to the bathroom, "When I get out of the shower, you better at least be sleeping on the couch"


End file.
